BOSTON -- While saying law enforcement needs to analyze the Boston Marathon bombings to determine what it missed and areas where it can improve, Massachusetts State Police Col. Tim Alben said the April 15 terror attacks should also prompt members of the general public to rethink their roles as watchdogs.

"Going back and looking at the videos, what really struck me is how this person can just walk up in a busy area and nobody pays attention," Alben said during an interview Monday on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan show, referring to the two bombing suspects who strode through a crowd of marathon watchers and allegedly detonated bombs concealed in backpacks and placed on the Boylston Street sidewalk.

"I'm not blaming anybody, I'm not trying to attribute that," Alben said. "But the public has to be very, very diligent about people around them. I mean, I don't go into a movie theater without looking around to see who's sitting next to me or who's a couple of rows away. Every time you go into a major event like this you've got to be on your game. You've got to be at least looking around and seeing what your surroundings are."

Surveillance videos helped investigators identify the bombing suspects and Alben said the tragedy underscored a need for law enforcement to be more creative, including in its use of technology. Unless crowds are fenced off in "portals" like at Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium, he said, there will be risks.

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"Ultimately what it comes down to is when you have large open-air public events like this there's always going to be a certain amount of risk that you assume," Alben said.

Alleged bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev of Cambridge was killed Friday during a shootout in Watertown. Authorities say his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ran him over in a stolen SUV while trying to escape. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev eluded police Friday until he was captured after a homeowner spotted him hiding in his boat. Tsarnaev, in critical condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death.

If convicted, he could face the death penalty or life in prison.

Looking ahead, as a national debate grows louder about the effectiveness of intelligence agencies in preventing terror attacks, the investigation into the Tsarnaev brothers continues and Alben said the State Police remain involved with the Joint Terrorism Task Force. "We still have a lot of work to do," he said.

"They've got their work cut out for them now because I think we want to rule out the possibility that there are other people involved in this and if there are other people, we need to identify them," Alben said. "We need to do more work in determining where these devices were assembled and put together. We need to look at financing and how they financed whatever it was that they were doing, and other activities, other associates that they might have here."

One of the big unanswered questions currently is whether Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old UMass Dartmouth student, will cooperate with federal investigators.

"If you look at this situation right now," Alben said, "he doesn't have a whole lot of options available to him."

There's also speculation that Tsarnaev could be charged in what authorities described as the execution of MIT police officer Sean Collier, who was being laid to rest Tuesday at a private funeral. Collier will be mourned Wednesday during a memorial service at the university's Briggs Field that State Police say is not a public event and is for public-safety personnel, MIT family and dignitaries. Vice President Joseph Biden plans to attend the service.

Alben said that before the shootout in Watertown, Collier was dispatched Friday night in response to a loud-noise call and "found nothing" when he pulled up in his cruiser.

"Shortly after his arrival, these two approached him and literally executed him as he was sitting in the car and about to get out," Alben said, adding, "This is something that borders on an execution, something that you wouldn't do to an animal let alone another human being."

As he began to speculate about possible motives behind the killing of Collier, Alben stopped himself.

"They put a bomb down behind an eight-year-old boy on Boylston Street," he said. "How do we inject any kind of logic in any of this?" He later added, "You scratch your head trying to think, 'What are they doing here? What's the end game to all of this? And it's really, really hard to determine that. Maybe this guy sitting in Beth Israel is going to tell us that. But until someone puts some kind of sense to this we're still putting the pieces together here."

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